The Striking Similarities Between Elon Musk and Wayne Brown
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- Date published:
9:02 pm, November 9th, 2022 - 17 comments
Categories: auckland supercity, Politics, spin, twitter -
Tags: elon musk, Wayne Brown
On the face of it Elon Musk and Wayne Brown have little more in common than an inflated ego and a propensity for communicating and leading by tweets and open letters, respectively. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg and once you start dig a bit deeper a few worrying similarities start to emerge from the depths of the dark arts of mass manipulation.
Let’s start with Mr Musk.
An interesting hypothesis with a high level of plausibility was put forward in an article today entitled Twitter chaos is part of Elon Musk’s master plan. Essentially, it posits that the devilish disruptor is deliberately seeding doubt & confusion to gaslight the public. The real agenda remains hidden, of course.
While Mr Musk claims wanting to fix Twitter, free speech, and humankind he is puzzling the pundits by his counter-intuitive actions. This is a segue to the other fixer, Wayne Brown, who claims his calling is not colonising Mars but fixing Auckland’s woes. My money is on growing mushrooms on Mars before Auckland’s problems are sorted, but then again, I tend to have a negative outlook on manned space travel with Musk in charge of the auto pilot.
Unlike Mr Musk, Mr Brown has been shunning the limelight and refused interviews. Mr Brown’s ghost writers have been busy trying to gaslight the public and particularly the CCOs through ominous epistles kindly shared with the public. (NB this will not prevent future leaks of inconvenient information at opportune times). However, the real agenda of Mr Brown and his team of men in the shadows advisors appears to be strongarming the Council and paving the way for Mr Brown to get his way and do his thing whatever that might be (something to do with a mandate).
Unlike Mr Musk, who bought himself into a position of power through deals with shady financial backers, Mr Brown is a democratically elected official who must secure a majority on the Council to get things done his way. Tomorrow we will find out how successful Mr Brown will be in his Trumpian strategy. I don’t know if Mr Brown is on Twitter – @realwaynebrown? – but we might hear a tweet tomorrow after the first official Council meeting since the General Elections.
As for Mr Musk, we may have to wait a little longer before we know what the real deal is, but it will undoubtedly involve a tweet from the Chief Twit himself. I reckon it is worth joining Twitter now and even pay the $13 a month to stay informed in a visible, open, public, and transparent manner that is conducive to free speech in a free society; it is not quite as cheap as Netflix but much better value for money and you get to play a (minor) role in one of the biggest reality shows on Earth and become an influencer with the blue tick as your badge at the same time (if the deal sounds too good, take it!). FOMO and virtue signalling are strong determinants of human behaviour, especially on-line, so who would want to miss out on that?
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- NZ must urgently help whanau in Lebanon
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The National Government’s decisions have hindered, not helped the economy. ...2 weeks ago
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- South Pacific defence meeting fosters collaboration
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- South Pacific Defence Ministers meet in Auckland
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- Four new laws to tackle crime passed in Q3
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- Reforming the building consent system
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kerry Brown, Professor of Employment and Industry, School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University NT_Studio/Shutterstock Should young people be paid less than their older counterparts, even if they’re working the same job? Whether you think it’s fair or not, it’s ...2 days ago - Rocky Road: The Rock In The Hill A Quarry Really, Really Wants To Get Out
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A gruesome twosome that are certainly similar in being backroom deal makers that abhor public scrutiny let alone input–proven revenge sackers, and union busters. PSA members were first to go in Brown’s FNDC firing binge, and he let public campaign meetings know of his intentions on that. Mr Musk similarly shows little mercy to workers at his businesses that try to unionise according to US reports.
https://labortribune.com/tesla-found-guilty-of-union-busting/
“Browny” as he liked to be known in the Far North while FNDC Mayor, fakes being inarticulate. It is a tactic perhaps to appeal to the inarticulate. Imagine the reaction if Efeso Collins was Mayor and refused media interviews for three weeks!
He will try to pick supercity Councillors off one by one in private contacts, Steinie in hand as he totes up the numbers needed to sell off remaining assets such as Airport and POA shares which are potentially worth billions, to fill Desley’s “hole” of a few hundred million.
It seems same old same old, and an insult to the likes of Bruce Jesson and Mike Lee who held the line.
Hopefully Councillors and staff have retained their spines and stick it to Mr Brown promptly.
Oh dear and here's me thinking that the most similar similarities were between Donald Brown and Wayne Trump…….I'm sorry I'll read that again.
Though having Hooten et al as the whisperers probably beats even having to do one's own tweets.
Both are trying to turn around failing businesses.
Neither have had to face a fresh shareholder meeting yet.
Brown's first Council meeting is apparently this week, and he still hasn't set out a committee structure.
Musk will face his $44b deal backers in short order if he doesn't get revenue up very fast.
Both will find that being an asshole isn't a good road to business recovery.
Wayne Brown is already claiming the Auckland budget is out of control so he's looking to sell council assets.
Hence why first council meeting and committee structure so important: accept a committee chair for extra money and power but you are expected to vote with Mayor on budget.
If he just gives chairs to loyalists he faces a split council at LTP vote time
Path of least financial interest is to sell off remaining airport shares. Path of least internal political resistance is reward only your side with chairs.
I can't remember
right now but Aucklanders know/accept they were voting for a dictator? All this talk about mandates this, mandate that and the size of his vote is important really on the day, though it does make slipping some things across the gullible public a bit easier. From the time the council is sworn in the only real results/decisions are those that the Council itself makes.
I wonder is he setting himself up to be rewarded with a safe Nat/Act seat?
Well goodness me there's a surprise.
He had access to Council financial documents during the campaign so I am taking anything he says with a grain of salt. He's right wing and so selling other peoples assets is in the blood.
"He had access to Council financial documents during the campaign …"
Not really.
"Councillor Josephine Bartley wanted to know how confident the finance team was in their forecasts, seeing as the gap between the council’s projected income and expenditure for next year is worse than a worst-case scenario signalled in the budget passed just four months ago."
(Emphasis mine).
Auckland elected Brown by a substantial majority to deal with the city's problems. It will be a wild ride, but it is necessary.
Mayor Boomer's handlers have been trying to create a fiscal emergency since day one.
Yes indeed they have.
I’d better stop commenting in threads like these, like Jordan Petersen, Wayne Brown gives me shivers up and down my spine, a visceral feeling.
Perhaps ‘Boomer’ women ‘know’ what they are seeing when they look at Mayor Brown.
Definitely creepy. Have lived in the same community as him around Doubtless Bay since mid 90s.
Unfortunately Mr Brown has an ex Labourite from the Clark years in his team, as well as two of the usual prominent Nats–one Chris “Lizard” Matthews. Stuff reported Matthews as running interference for Wayne in some early attempted media encounters.
What can you tell us about Chris Matthews? I had never heard of him.
soft shoe brown now doing a bit of a backward shuffle. Quite like trump for me on the campaign trail – say anything if it gets votes, hyberbolie, make something up if you don't know the answer, don't worry about too many details, catastrophise, threaten to clean things out and sack people. Once in power start fairly quickly to back peddle and hope people don't notice it too much, at least not too quickly. Fairly typical of the big talkers (BSers is another way of stating it), big talk, not so much delivery on what they say. Leo Molloy was a narcissistic big mouth, Brown strikes me as a big talker.
It just could be,
that the similarity is as simple as,
they are outing themselves as twits.
I'm not sure that Wayne Brown has as clever and conscientious a sibling:
Elon Musk’s brother ramps up vertical farming venture – Future Food Systems
Give us a break Wayne. Can't you just say thank you?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/11/government-calls-on-aucklanders-to-give-feedback-on-waitemat-harbour-crossing.html